Project Online Resource Plan issues_Many

I am trying to setup a client that only wants to use Project Server for portfolio planning and analysis. In this scenario they only want to assign generic resources (remember, no detail plans...only high level), and want to use the resource plan. Sounds
simple, but I am finding a lot of issues with this scenario, primarily with resources plan.
1. The resource plan seems to be checked out with no way to check it in other than through the force check-in. On occasion it seems to get checked in but I can't figure out the steps. I've tried with and without editing and publishing the
project itself with no avail. Sometimes the Publish option is still available (but I assume it wouldn't be if someone else checked it out) but sometimes it is greyed out.
2. I can't assign capacity to a generic resource and use it in Portfolio Analysis. This seems to be a feature that in my opinion was poorly conceived, but I'll leave out the details of this rant.
3. and biggest issue which is definitely a bug and show-stopper. Changing the date rage of an existing resource plan doesn't change the resource demand for a date range that was cut from the original. I can back the start date or extend the end date,
but cannot move the start date or end date in. What happens is that the grid changes just fine but the resource date range along with the demand for that time no longer in play still show up as project demand.
I added this to the Project Online forum but all of this behavior is the same with Project Server 2013. Nothing I could see in the forums. Is this a new bug or can there maybe be a fix on the way? Any comment or update would be greatly
appreciated.
Thanks...
Larry Christofaro, PMP, MCITP

msayani2 --
Firstly, all of your people and machines need to b entered in the Enterprise Resource Pool. For each of the machines you list, enter a Max. Units value that represents 100% multiplied by the number of machines you have. For example, if you have
three road graders, you would enter 300% in the Max. Units column for a Road Grader resource.
Next, you will need to build enterprise projects, add the required people and machines as team members in the project, assign the resources to each task as needed, and then save and publish each enterprise project.
To see how the workload is distributed for your resources, navigate to the Resource Center page and select the resources whose assignments and availability you want to study. At the right end of the Resources ribbon, click the Resource Availability
button. On the Resource Availability, select the time range you want to use and you can then see the availability of your selected resources. You can also click the Resource Assignments button to study how the resources are being used on tasks
across all projects in Project Server.
Hope this helps.
Dale A. Howard [MVP]

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Project Online Resourcing

I am just playing with the trial version of Project Online and Project Pro. I want to assign roles to project tasks, but don't want to set up new users in the system so I can see what the different resourcing views can get me - how can I do that?

Reading "I type that resource name in the Assigned To box next to a task", I think
you don't have the right process for assigning a resource to a task. You have first to create your project team from the enterprise resource pool (assuming that your enterprise resources are correctly defined), then you'll choose for each task the resource(s)
you want to assign on the task from the project team you just built.
From the project center, select your project and navigate to the schedule page. Then ensure to edit the project plan in order to be able to modify it. Click on build team in the "project" tab of the ribbon.
In the "build team" interface, just select the resource you want to include in the project team and add them to the right part. Do not forget to save and close once done.
Finally for each task, click in the resource field and choose from the pickup list the resource(s) you want to assign to the task.
Do not forget to save and publish the project plan not to loose your edits.
Hope this helps.
Guillaume Rouyre - MBA, MCP, MCTS

Project Online Resource Management

We will be using project online for Resource Management - managing the workload on many machines - and do this function across the team collaboratively.
I was wondering how resources are managed in Project online. After loading tasks on my resources/machines , I need to be able to see/view how much workload is distributed on these resources/machines and if I can assign a pending task to the resource or shuffle
the work around.
I would like to use 2 project pro and 2 project lite licenses to manage resources/machines.

msayani2 --
Firstly, all of your people and machines need to b entered in the Enterprise Resource Pool. For each of the machines you list, enter a Max. Units value that represents 100% multiplied by the number of machines you have. For example, if you have
three road graders, you would enter 300% in the Max. Units column for a Road Grader resource.
Next, you will need to build enterprise projects, add the required people and machines as team members in the project, assign the resources to each task as needed, and then save and publish each enterprise project.
To see how the workload is distributed for your resources, navigate to the Resource Center page and select the resources whose assignments and availability you want to study. At the right end of the Resources ribbon, click the Resource Availability
button. On the Resource Availability, select the time range you want to use and you can then see the availability of your selected resources. You can also click the Resource Assignments button to study how the resources are being used on tasks
across all projects in Project Server.
Hope this helps.
Dale A. Howard [MVP]

"You will not be able to publish your resource plan..."

Hi all,
Project Server 2010 with SP1 and Feb '12 CU.
We've started experimenting with resource planning and have found a situation for which I have no explanation. For some projects, the resource plan functions work just fine. But we have a few where the Publish option in the ribbon of the resource
plan is greyed-out and a message stating "Your will not be able to publish your resource plan until you publish the corresponding project schedule". I've found that by following the instructions and publishing the project in PWA works - the publish capability
for the resource plan is no longer greyed-out.
HOWEVER, I don't know what's causing this situation in the first place. New projects can be created and they don't seem to produce the greyed-out publish option. Most existing projects won't behave this way either - but some do. It doesn't
appear to be a permissions issue since when the publish button is greyed-out it remains that way for project managers and admin alike. Also, publishing the project from Project Professional doesn't work either, only publishing from PWA will do the trick.
Any advice about how to avoid getting the greyed-out publish button for resource plans would be most appreciated.

Thanks Michael!
As it turns out, this isn't quite the answer but you've definitely helped in figuring this out. Based on some additional experimentation (triggered by your line of thinking!), it seems that a change to the project's task and/or resources will disable
the publish capability for that project's resource plan - unti the project is published again in PWA. So if you add a task, or resource, or change an assignment that will trigger this greyed-out behavior for the publish button in the ribbon of the resource
plan.
Also, I've found that publishing in project professional has no impact. The only way to re-enable the publish capability for the resource plan is to publish the project in PWA. Of course, the message that accompanies the greyed-out publish button
states this explicitly but people like me (who lack a keen sense for the obvious) sometimes miss these subtleties.
Thanks again for your response - quite helpful.

Project Online Edit Schedule Permissions

I'm using Sharepoint Groups for Project Online, and for some reason when a user is in the Owners group (full control) of a project, he can edit the schedule, but when I put him in a custom group, Managers (ALSO with full control), Edit schedule is greyed
out. Just for fun I deleted the OOTB owners group in one project now ONLY site collection admins can edit the project schedule. Any help appreciated.

Hi Alex,
If you are using SharePoint Permission Mode, you could not create additional custom group. If you need more management of your user permissions, you could change to Project Permission Mode.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-in/office365-project-online-help/plan-sharepoint-groups-in-project-online-HA103984710.aspx
http://office.microsoft.com/en-in/office365-project-online-help/change-permission-management-in-project-online-HA103433509.aspx
Since the issue is more related to Project online, I’d suggest you also post it on Project Online forum. For your convenience:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home?forum=projectonline
Regards,
Rebecca Tu
TechNet Community Support

Project Online - offline project plan prompts for date range to be entered when accessing Resource Usage view

When I save a project plan to my local computer from Project Online and open it up in an offline mode and access Resource Usage view I get prompted with Date Range dialog boxes with the first one saying "Show resources/assignments that start or finish
after:" and the second one with "And before:".
I don't have any filters that are setup in Project Online that are not available in offline mode to trigger these prompts.
Please let me know what could be causing the date range prompts. Thanks.

Hi,
You probably retrieve an enterprise filter into your local file. Just open the organizer from MS Project, go to the filter tab (be sure to have your project selected in the drop down menu at the top left of right of the organizer) and delete the date range
filter.
Hope this helps,
Guillaume Rouyre, MBA, MCP, MCTS |

Project Online, editing a user/resource: The User Logon Account always displays an error

New Project Online account. I changed the security mode from SharePoint to Project Server but I believe this was happening prior to that change. All resources are selected to be associated to a user account. This happens in both Resource
Center and Manage Users.
Every time I go to edit a resource, the User Authentication section contains the error "Multiple entries matched, please click to resolve.". I am unable to edit the user without first deleting the entry and selecting the same user name again. Only
one user ever comes up in the dropdown options and it always allows me to then save that resource record.
Please advise. I would like to have an answer before I hand this off to the PMO administrator who will be managing resources.
Larry Christofaro, PMP, MCITP

Hello, this is something I believe Microsoft are aware of so I guess will be resolved soon. This affects all tenants, well all tenants I have seen anyway! Paul
Paul Mather | Twitter |
http://pwmather.wordpress.com | CPS

Pulling in Resource initials to Project Online

Hello!
We have Office 365 with ADFS and have synced users using a group to the resource pool in Project Online. It seems like for some reason, it is only syncing the first initial of the user's first name into the Resource Initials section
The synced users, however, aren't populating the 'resource initials' from the synced accounts and since we'd like to stick with SharePoint permissions mode, I am unable to access and update that initials section (i.e. no Manage Users in PWA settings) manually.
Is there another way of updating that information?
Thanks
Damon Curtin

Hello Damon,
Have you ever found a solution for this? We have the same problem, although with an on-premise version of Project Server 2013.
I have found
this article which states that "Initials. This field is automatically populated with the initials of the resource, based on the name that is specified in the Display Name box. If you want to use different initials to refer to this resource, specify them
in the Initials box". The first part of the statement is correct, but as you pointed out, the Initials field is disabled in PWA for resources that are synchronised with AD.
Also, having enabled verbose logging in SharePoint and changed my initials in AD, I can see the following entry in the log:
Existing resource <GUID> was found in AD, and is identical - no update performed
which would suggest that Project Server is not even trying to synchronise the Initials field.
Regards
Boris

Allocation of resources fractionally to projects in project online.

Hi,
How to assign resources fractionally in Project Online without using Microsoft Project Professional?
For eg. if I want to allocate a resource's x% or x hrs in a task, then how do I do it in project online.
Note: If this functionality is not available in project online, then is there any idea when Microsoft is going to add this functionality in Project Online?
Thanks.
PSN

Hi PSN,
When you're in edition mode in Project Online, you can use one of the
assignments views. Then you'll be able to enter the work per assignments.
Note that you cannot edit the % of work neither you can edit the work per period in a timescale view like resource or task usage views in Project Pro.
Not being part of Microsoft staff (we're just volunteers here), we cannot give you any information on Microsoft Project next releases or SP. But my idea is that the online scheduling engine's next updates will not bring such an important improvement such
as modifying in detail assignments.
Hope this helps.
Guillaume Rouyre - MBA, MCP, MCTS

Duplicated resources on Project Online

Creating a user when a respective resource already exists, results in a duplicated resource.
This is a Project Online implementation based on Project Server permissions mode.
Consider this scenario:
There are 40 employees in the organization: 2 executives, a few project managers and the rest are team members. License for Project Online is purchased for only 10 employees.
The PMO creates users for the 10 employees on Project Online:
SharePoint users are created: Web AppàAdminàOffice
365àUsers and Groups
Project Online users are created: Web AppàProjectsàPWA
SettingsàManage usersàNew useràUser
logon account: type SharePoint user; Mark: "User can be assigned as a resource"
The PMO creates the other 30 employees as resources on Project Online on Enterprise Resource Pool.
At this point, all 40 employees are resources on Project Online.
After a while, additional 5 licenses are purchased. Steps 2.a and 2.b are performed for the respective employees.
In this scenario, there are 5 employees who are duplicated on Resource Center, i.e. appear twice: one is a non-user resource, and the over is a user who is also a resource.
How can I avoid the resources' duplication?

When employees are already present as ressource in Resource center then you need not to create new user for same employee.
To avoid this situation
Open Resource center from PWA then Click on Resource to whom you want to make user then Click on Edit and then click on Associate Resource with user account then give AD account for reosurce and add to the group and click on same.
Once you will do this your resource will also work as User and there will be not duplication.
kirtesh

Do we have to subcribe to an office 365 plan before we can use project online standalone?

hi,
do we have to subcribe to an office 365 plan before we can use project online standalone?
how can we use it after purchasing? where do we sign in?
tnx

MGerio,
Just to add on to Paul's answer, Project Online is one of the applications that runs on Office 365, so you will need Office 365 to use Project Online.
Having said that, AFAIK, the Office 365 Subscription is included in the Project Online license fee. when you go straight to the link Paul provided, and purchase licenses, you will also get Office 365 as a base.
Cheers,
Prasanna Adavi, Project MVP
Blog:
Podcast:
Twitter:
LinkedIn:

Resource Plan in Project Server 2013 : where is the remaining availability ?

Hi,
I created a new project with not any task but with a Resource Plan.
I selected the Calculate from: Resource Plan option and clicked
Publish and then Close
I checked the availability of resources : it is still the same. The resource plan has no impact !
What did I miss?
Thanks

Robert,
Is your resource's booking type set to Proposed, by any chance in the resource plan? If yes, are you selecting the Include proposed bookings option in the resource availability graph?
Cheers,
Prasanna Adavi, Project MVP
Blog:
Podcast:
Twitter:
LinkedIn:

Is there a way to restore a resource plan for a project in 2010?

I am able to use administrative restore to restore a project's schedule and tasks but I would like to restore its related resource plan as well. Is this possible? Are resource plans archived in the database anywhere? I see a table in the archive database
for it but I don't see any data in the table.

Hi,
Unfortunately when you restore a project plan, the associated resource plan is NOT restored. You have to recreated it again.
Please refer to the following article for more details: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2513896/en-us.
Hope this helps.
Guillaume Rouyre - MBA, MCP, MCTS

Project Online learning resources

Are there any good resources online for learning about Project Online/Project WebApp? I've kind of pieced together some things here and there and I managed to get a Project Pro project imported but I can't find much beyond getting started videos
for actually learning about Project Online. Or what I do find are old videos from the "preview" version that seem to be more marketing/sales oriented rather than for training.

My fellow Project MVP, Paul Mather, has put together a series of posts which exactly do this.
https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/getting-started-with-projectonline-round-up-ps2013-office365-project-ppm-sharepointonline-pm-sp2013/
Cheers,
Prasanna Adavi, Project MVP
Blog:
Podcast:
Twitter:
LinkedIn:

Project Server 2013 for Resource Planning & Project Portfolio Management

We are looking to use project server 2013 for resource and project portfolio management. We are an IT department of approximately 600 growing to 1,000 within the next several years.
We would like to us PS2013 to do the following :
Manage Portfolio of Projects
Manage Resources against this Portfolio
Calculate Project Finances using resource roles and rates
I would be grateful to have both comments on experience , both positive and negative.
Thank You

Many teams within organizations are turning to Project Server to help them control resources, deliverables and costs better. It does resource management very well with work & cost resources, baseline costs, material costs, budget costs and
out of the box earned value analysis (EV). The Strategy (portfolio) component is very powerful and it will help you identify project that align to your objects then do what if analysis to find the right mix of projects.
Here are a couple of things you should think about when moving to PS2013:
1) Who will be using the tool? If it is a mix of onsite staff, remote staff, vendors, contractors etc. you may want to think about a hosted solution.
2) Training. Don't assume everyone will just magically 'know' how to use the tool. Train everyone (team members, PMs, Executives) then train them again. It's the only way to truly get the value out of the tool.
3) Who will manage the system? This is not a typical application. The right administrator needs SharePoint, Project Server, SQL Server, MS Project, Analysis Services and SQL Report writing skills. Please note that much of this can
be learned by the right person but DEFINITELY find the right person.
4) Don't start customizing right out of the box. You will get frustrated. Adjust your organization to the tool early on. I know that is easier said than done but you need a realistic approach to get tool acceptance moving early.
5) Use workflows but don't use them right out of the gate. Workflows are great but I suggest you wait until phase 2 or 3 to start aligning them to your business processes.
6) Lastly and most importantly, you must first establish your own business processes THEN align them to the tool. DO NOT assume the tool will create business process for you. You must think about how you are going to initiate a project,
how are you going to track deliverables, how will time sheets be managed, etc. Get to a whiteboard, crack open Visio and start building and establishing your processes now. PS 2013 is pretty flexible and usually will align well with existing business
processes.
And don't forget to hire a good consultant. They can be brought in during key phases of your roll-out to add value, help you avoid risks, and provide you with best practice advice.
Good luck.

Project Online Resource Plan issues_Many

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